Allyn Woghin was introducing her boyfriend, Robert Gleim, and his 12-year-old daughter, Lucy, to Christmas, the Jewish way.
They’d spent the morning in the San Gabriel Valley — the heart of Chinese L.A. and its cuisines — before landing at Twin Dragon in Pico-Robertson for the holiday meal.
Blending her Jewish traditions and Gleim’s Christian ones was especially meaningful because of Lucy.
And this year, with the Israel-Hamas war and the rising threat of antisemitism at home, there was an undercurrent of fear.
“It’s scarier to be in the place Jews go on Christmas,” said Woghin, 49. But the pull of barbecue pork ribs won out.
For many American Jews, Christmas simply isn’t Christmas without kung pao chicken and afternoon tickets to the latest holiday blockbuster.
For Twin Dragon, a 61-year-old landmark in the heart of Jewish L.A. and one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in the area, that makes Dec. 25 nothing short of the Super Bowl.
“It’s the busiest day of the year,” manager Amanda Tang said.
The Wren family has dinner at Twin Dragon on Christmas.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
The ritual emerged around the turn of the 20th century with Jews on New York’s Lower East Side, around the same time as the Yiddish term for dining out, oysessen.
Back then, Chinese restaurants were some of the few eateries open on Christmas. Today, they’re some of the hardest to get into, with restaurants from Flatbush, N.Y., to Fairfax booked solid for holiday meals.
The Chinese feast is not a universal Jewish custom. Relatively few Orthodox Jews observe it. Nor is it particularly widespread among L.A.’s large Persian, Israeli and Russian Jewish communities.
Still, red and white takeout carriers are now as much a part of Christmas in Los Angeles as tamales and artificial snow.
Many non-Jews — including atheists, Buddhists and Christians too lazy to cook — also congregate at Chinese restaurants on the holiday.
Twin Dragon has…